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Selected Verse: Amos 4:12 - King James

Verse	Translation	Text
Am 4:12	King James	Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse

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A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]
Therefore--as all chastisements have failed to make thee "return unto Me." thus will I do unto thee--as I have threatened (Amo 4:2-3). prepare to meet thy God--God is about to inflict the last and worst judgment on thee, the extinction of thy nationality; consider then what preparation thou canst make for encountering Him as thy foe (Jer 46:14; Luk 14:31-32). But as that would be madness to think of (Isa 27:4; Eze 22:14; Heb 10:31), see what can be done towards mitigating the severity of the coming judgment, by penitence (Isa 27:5; Co1 11:31). This latter exhortation is followed up in Amo 5:4, Amo 5:6, Amo 5:8, Amo 5:14-15.

A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882]

Therefore--as all chastisements have failed to make thee "return unto Me."

thus will I do unto thee--as I have threatened (Amo 4:2-3).

prepare to meet thy God--God is about to inflict the last and worst judgment on thee, the extinction of thy nationality; consider then what preparation thou canst make for encountering Him as thy foe (Jer 46:14; Luk 14:31-32). But as that would be madness to think of (Isa 27:4; Eze 22:14; Heb 10:31), see what can be done towards mitigating the severity of the coming judgment, by penitence (Isa 27:5; Co1 11:31). This latter exhortation is followed up in Amo 5:4, Amo 5:6, Amo 5:8, Amo 5:14-15.

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]
Therefore thus will I do unto thee - God says more by His silence. He had enumerated successive scourges. Now, with His hand uplifted to strike, He mentions none, but says, "thus." Rib.: "So men too, loth to name evils, which they fear and detest, say, "God do so to me, and more also." God using the language of people" Jerome, "having said, 'thus will I do unto thee,' is silent as to what He will do; that so, Israel hanging in suspense, as having before him each sort of punishment (which are the more terrible, because he imagines them one by one), may indeed repent, that God inflict not what He threatens." Prepare to meet thy God - In judgment, face to face, final to them. All the judgments which had been sent hitherto were but heralds, forerunners of the judgment to come. He Himself was not in them. In them, He passed no sentence upon Israel. They were medicinal, corrective; they were not His final sentence. Now, having tried all ways of recovering them in vain, God summons them before His tribunal. But although the judgment of the ten tribes, as a whole, was final, to individuals there was place for repentance. God never, in this life, bids people or individuals "prepare to meet Him," without a purpose of good to those who do prepare to receive His sentence aright. He saith not then, "come and hear your doom," but "prepare to meet thy God." It has hope in it, to be bidden to "prepare;" yet more, that He whom they were to prepare to meet, was "their God." It must have recurred full often to the mind of the ten tribes during their unrestored captivity of above seven centuries before the Coming of our Lord; a period as long as the whole existence of Rome from its foundation to its decay; as long as our history from our king Stephen until now. Full oft must they have thought, "we have not met Him yet," and the thought must have dawned upon them; "It is because He willed to "do thus" with us, that He bid us "prepare to meet" Him. He met us not, when He did it. It was then something further on; it is in the Messiah that we arc to meet and to see Him." Jerome: "Prepare to meet thy God," receiving with all eagerness the Lord coming unto thee." So then, is this further sense which lay in a the words , "he (as did Hosea at the end) exhorts the ten tribes, after they had been led captive by the Assyrians, not to despond, but to "prepare to meet their God," that is, to acknowledge and receive Christ their God, when the Gospel should be preached to them by the Apostles." Rib.: "God punisheth, not in cruelty, but in love. He warns then those whom He strikes, to understand what He means by these punishments, not thinking themselves abandoned by God, but, even when they seem most cast away and reprobate, rousing themselves, in the hope of God's mercy through Christ, to call upon God, and "prepare to meet their God." For no one's salvation is so desperate, no one is so stained with every kind of sin, but that God cometh to him by holy inspirations, to bring back the wanderer to Himself. Thou therefore, O Israel, whoever thou art, who didst once serve God, and now servest vilest pleasures, when thou feelest God coming to thee, prepare to meet Him. Open the door of thy heart to that most kind and benevolent Guest, and, when thou hearest His Voice, deafen not thyself: flee not, like Adam. For He seeketh thee, not to judge, but to save thee."

Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834]

Therefore thus will I do unto thee - God says more by His silence. He had enumerated successive scourges. Now, with His hand uplifted to strike, He mentions none, but says, "thus." Rib.: "So men too, loth to name evils, which they fear and detest, say, "God do so to me, and more also." God using the language of people" Jerome, "having said, 'thus will I do unto thee,' is silent as to what He will do; that so, Israel hanging in suspense, as having before him each sort of punishment (which are the more terrible, because he imagines them one by one), may indeed repent, that God inflict not what He threatens."

Prepare to meet thy God - In judgment, face to face, final to them. All the judgments which had been sent hitherto were but heralds, forerunners of the judgment to come. He Himself was not in them. In them, He passed no sentence upon Israel. They were medicinal, corrective; they were not His final sentence. Now, having tried all ways of recovering them in vain, God summons them before His tribunal. But although the judgment of the ten tribes, as a whole, was final, to individuals there was place for repentance. God never, in this life, bids people or individuals "prepare to meet Him," without a purpose of good to those who do prepare to receive His sentence aright. He saith not then, "come and hear your doom," but "prepare to meet thy God." It has hope in it, to be bidden to "prepare;" yet more, that He whom they were to prepare to meet, was "their God." It must have recurred full often to the mind of the ten tribes during their unrestored captivity of above seven centuries before the Coming of our Lord; a period as long as the whole existence of Rome from its foundation to its decay; as long as our history from our king Stephen until now.

Full oft must they have thought, "we have not met Him yet," and the thought must have dawned upon them; "It is because He willed to "do thus" with us, that He bid us "prepare to meet" Him. He met us not, when He did it. It was then something further on; it is in the Messiah that we arc to meet and to see Him." Jerome: "Prepare to meet thy God," receiving with all eagerness the Lord coming unto thee." So then, is this further sense which lay in a the words , "he (as did Hosea at the end) exhorts the ten tribes, after they had been led captive by the Assyrians, not to despond, but to "prepare to meet their God," that is, to acknowledge and receive Christ their God, when the Gospel should be preached to them by the Apostles." Rib.: "God punisheth, not in cruelty, but in love. He warns then those whom He strikes, to understand what He means by these punishments, not thinking themselves abandoned by God, but, even when they seem most cast away and reprobate, rousing themselves, in the hope of God's mercy through Christ, to call upon God, and "prepare to meet their God." For no one's salvation is so desperate, no one is so stained with every kind of sin, but that God cometh to him by holy inspirations, to bring back the wanderer to Himself. Thou therefore, O Israel, whoever thou art, who didst once serve God, and now servest vilest pleasures, when thou feelest God coming to thee, prepare to meet Him. Open the door of thy heart to that most kind and benevolent Guest, and, when thou hearest His Voice, deafen not thyself: flee not, like Adam. For He seeketh thee, not to judge, but to save thee."

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]
"Therefore thus will I do to thee, O Israel; because I will do this to thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Amo 4:13. For, behold, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and maketh known to man what is his thought; who maketh dawn, darkness, and goeth over the high places of the earth, Jehovah God of hosts is His name." The punishment which God is now about to inflict is introduced with lâkhēn (therefore). כּה אעשׁה cannot point back to the punishment threatened in Amo 4:2, Amo 4:3, and still less to the chastisements mentioned in Amo 4:6-11; for lâkhēn kōh is always used by Amos to introduce what is about to ensue, and any retrospective allusion to Amo 4:6-11 is precluded by the future אעשׂה. What Jehovah is now about to do is not expressed here more iratorum, but may clearly be discerned from what follows. "When He has said, 'This will I do to thee,' He is silent as to what He will do, in order that, whilst Israel is left in uncertainty as to the particular kind of punishment (which is all the more terrible because all kinds of things are imagined), it may repent of its sins, and so avert the things which God threatens here" (Jerome). Instead of an announcement of the punishment, there follows in the words, "Because I will do this to thee (זאת pointing back to כּה), prepare to meet thy God," a summons to hold themselves in readiness liqra'th 'ĕlōhı̄m (in occursum Dei), i.e., to stand before God thy judge. The meaning of this summons has been correctly explained by Calvin thus: "When thou seest that thou hast resorted in vain to all kinds of subterfuges, since thou never wilt be able to escape from the hand of thy judge; see now at length that thou dost avert this last destruction which is hanging over thee." But this can only be effected "by true renewal of heart, in which men are dissatisfied with themselves, and submit with changed heart to God, and come as suppliants, praying for forgiveness." For if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged by the Lord (Co1 11:31). This view is shown to be the correct one, by the repeated admonitions to seek the Lord and live (Amo 5:4, Amo 5:6; cf. Amo 5:14). To give all the greater emphasis to this command, Amos depicts God in Amo 4:13 as the Almighty and Omniscient, who creates prosperity and adversity. The predicates applied to God are to be regarded as explanations of אלהיך, prepare to meet thy God; for it is He who formeth mountains, etc., i.e., the Almighty, and also He who maketh known to man מה־שּׂחו, what man thinketh, not what God thinketh, since שׂח = שׂיח is not applicable to God, and is only used ironically of Baal in Kg1 18:27. The thought is this: God is the searcher of the heart (Jer 17:10; Psa 139:2), and reveals to men by prophets the state of their heart, since He judges not only the outward actions, but the inmost emotions of the heart (cf. Heb 4:12). עשׂה שׁחר עיפה might mean, He turns morning dawn into darkness, since עשׂה may be construed with the accusative of that into which anything is made (compare Exo 30:25, and the similar thought in Amo 5:8, that God darkens the day into night). But both of these arguments simply prove the possibility of this explanation, not that it is either necessary or correct. As a rule, where עשׂה occurs, the thing into which anything is made is introduced with ל (cf. Gen 12:2; Exo 32:10). Here, therefore, ל may be omitted, simply to avoid ambiguity. For these reasons we agree with Calvin and others, who take the words as asyndeton. God makes morning-dawn and darkness, which is more suitable to a description of the creative omnipotence of God; and the omission of the Vav may be explained very simply from the oratorical character of the prophecy. To this there is appended the last statement: He passes along over the high places of the earth, i.e., He rules the earth with unlimited omnipotence (see at Deu 32:13), and manifests Himself thereby as the God of the universe, or God of hosts.

Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78]

"Therefore thus will I do to thee, O Israel; because I will do this to thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel. Amo 4:13. For, behold, He that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and maketh known to man what is his thought; who maketh dawn, darkness, and goeth over the high places of the earth, Jehovah God of hosts is His name." The punishment which God is now about to inflict is introduced with lâkhēn (therefore). כּה אעשׁה cannot point back to the punishment threatened in Amo 4:2, Amo 4:3, and still less to the chastisements mentioned in Amo 4:6-11; for lâkhēn kōh is always used by Amos to introduce what is about to ensue, and any retrospective allusion to Amo 4:6-11 is precluded by the future אעשׂה. What Jehovah is now about to do is not expressed here more iratorum, but may clearly be discerned from what follows. "When He has said, 'This will I do to thee,' He is silent as to what He will do, in order that, whilst Israel is left in uncertainty as to the particular kind of punishment (which is all the more terrible because all kinds of things are imagined), it may repent of its sins, and so avert the things which God threatens here" (Jerome). Instead of an announcement of the punishment, there follows in the words, "Because I will do this to thee (זאת pointing back to כּה), prepare to meet thy God," a summons to hold themselves in readiness liqra'th 'ĕlōhı̄m (in occursum Dei), i.e., to stand before God thy judge. The meaning of this summons has been correctly explained by Calvin thus: "When thou seest that thou hast resorted in vain to all kinds of subterfuges, since thou never wilt be able to escape from the hand of thy judge; see now at length that thou dost avert this last destruction which is hanging over thee." But this can only be effected "by true renewal of heart, in which men are dissatisfied with themselves, and submit with changed heart to God, and come as suppliants, praying for forgiveness." For if we judge ourselves, we shall not be judged by the Lord (Co1 11:31). This view is shown to be the correct one, by the repeated admonitions to seek the Lord and live (Amo 5:4, Amo 5:6; cf. Amo 5:14). To give all the greater emphasis to this command, Amos depicts God in Amo 4:13 as the Almighty and Omniscient, who creates prosperity and adversity. The predicates applied to God are to be regarded as explanations of אלהיך, prepare to meet thy God; for it is He who formeth mountains, etc., i.e., the Almighty, and also He who maketh known to man מה־שּׂחו, what man thinketh, not what God thinketh, since שׂח = שׂיח is not applicable to God, and is only used ironically of Baal in Kg1 18:27. The thought is this: God is the searcher of the heart (Jer 17:10; Psa 139:2), and reveals to men by prophets the state of their heart, since He judges not only the outward actions, but the inmost emotions of the heart (cf. Heb 4:12). עשׂה שׁחר עיפה might mean, He turns morning dawn into darkness, since עשׂה may be construed with the accusative of that into which anything is made (compare Exo 30:25, and the similar thought in Amo 5:8, that God darkens the day into night). But both of these arguments simply prove the possibility of this explanation, not that it is either necessary or correct. As a rule, where עשׂה occurs, the thing into which anything is made is introduced with ל (cf. Gen 12:2; Exo 32:10). Here, therefore, ל may be omitted, simply to avoid ambiguity. For these reasons we agree with Calvin and others, who take the words as asyndeton. God makes morning-dawn and darkness, which is more suitable to a description of the creative omnipotence of God; and the omission of the Vav may be explained very simply from the oratorical character of the prophecy. To this there is appended the last statement: He passes along over the high places of the earth, i.e., He rules the earth with unlimited omnipotence (see at Deu 32:13), and manifests Himself thereby as the God of the universe, or God of hosts.

Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65]
Therefore - In a more terrible manner will I now proceed against thee.

Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826
Therefore thus will I do unto thee - I will continue my judgments, I will fight against you; and, because I am thus determined: - Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel - This is a military phrase, and is to be understood as a challenge to come out to battle. As if the Lord had said, I will attack you immediately. Throw yourselves into a posture of defense, summon your idols to your help: and try how far your strength, and that of your gods, will avail you against the unconquerable arm of the Lord of hosts! This verse has been often painfully misapplied by public teachers; it has no particular relation to the day of judgment, nor to the hour of death. These constructions are impositions on the text.

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¹⁴ Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.
¹⁵ Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate: it may be that the LORD God of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph.

⁸ Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name:

⁶ Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

⁴ For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

³¹ For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

⁵ Or let him take hold of my strength, that he may make peace with me; and he shall make peace with me.

³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

¹⁴ Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong, in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the LORD have spoken it, and will do it.

⁴ Fury is not in me: who would set the briers and thorns against me in battle? I would go through them, I would burn them together.

³¹ Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
³² Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

¹⁴ Declare ye in Egypt, and publish in Migdol, and publish in Noph and in Tahpanhes: say ye, Stand fast, and prepare thee; for the sword shall devour round about thee.

² The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.
³ And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.

¹³ He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields; and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

¹⁰ Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

² And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

²⁵ And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil.

¹² For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

² Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

¹⁰ I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

²⁷ And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.

¹³ For, lo, he that formeth the mountains, and createth the wind, and declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of hosts, is his name.

¹⁴ Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live: and so the LORD, the God of hosts, shall be with you, as ye have spoken.

⁶ Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph, and devour it, and there be none to quench it in Bethel.

⁴ For thus saith the LORD unto the house of Israel, Seek ye me, and ye shall live:

³¹ For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged.

⁶ And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
⁷ And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered.
⁸ So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
⁹ I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
¹⁰ I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt: your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.
¹¹ I have overthrown some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD.

³ And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her; and ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD.

² The Lord GOD hath sworn by his holiness, that, lo, the days shall come upon you, that he will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks.